Knotted
by messengercat
Summary: Three different knots for three different stories, ones which were either ending or just beginning. Three short oneshots. Spoliers for Mockingjay.
1. One: Figure Eight

_A/N._ These were written simply to try and fill in a few gaps in my own mind, but a friend said I should share, so here we go. Each title is a real knot, and the first one, the figure eight, is a stopper knot used to keep a line from getting away.

_Disclaimer:_ Don't own it. Never have, never will, just borrowing the characters.

**One: Figure Eight**

Interior design may not have been his forte, he preferred to decorate the contents as opposed to the room in which said contents resided, but really, all the never-ending brickwork and metal did look particularly inviting. The bloodstains and screaming did not help improve the impression it left on a person either. Then again, the president's choice in dungeon décor was hardly his first concern given the circumstances, hanging from the wall like a broken marionette.

"Where are they hiding her?"

To be perfectly honest he really didn't know, not precisely. He could tell them she would be in District Thirteen, but he wouldn't and to all intent and purpose that was probably something they could at least take an educated guess at. Still, in answer to their question, no, he did not know exactly, to the room, where Katniss was.

He didn't say that though, instead blinking back the impending bout of unconsciousness, tilting his head to one side and regarding the questioner with a critical gaze, "They really should change the cotton they're using for those uniforms; that one will not last more than a month before it is nothing but threads and buttons."

The answer was not the one which was requested so he paid for it before the next question was delivered.

"Who else is a spy for the rebels?"

Another one he didn't really know, not all of them, sure, he knew Tigress, but that was only because she was – or had been – in the same line of work as him.

"How about a nice, hard-wearing, polycotton? Surely that's not too expensive for dear old Snow now is it? Can't have his forces looking like refugees can we?"

Not only a wrong answer, but answering back as well, he should have learnt by now not to make a show of things, because the punishment for that reply made his teeth rattle and sent stars scattering across his vision. It could not, however, shake his resolve as he waited for the next question.

"What are District Thirteen planning?"

That was the most stupid question out of all the ones they insisted on asking him, surely, surely they knew that without having to be told: Revolution, an end to the oppression and Hunger Games.

"You really should take in those seams; the food shortage is beginning to show."

This was what he did, day in and day out, answering they foolish questions with even more foolish and useless replies. Some days he did not even know why they continued trying, but, he did know; it was because he had known Katniss personally, had turned her, literally, into the Mockingjay on live television. They thought he had to know something of use to them and for that he needed to be able to speak, the only reason they had yet to either kill him or turn him into an Avox.

Yes, they needed him to talk, so he talked, about fabrics and fashion because there was nothing they could hold over him. Katniss was safe, and he had seen to it that all his work went to District Thirteen, his team included. Snow could not harm them and he had nothing left in the Capitol. Oh yes, he had won his battle.

"How long-"

He turned them out after a while, watching their lips move but no sound come out, replying when expected and accepting what it cost him to give those replies. He listened to the chains clink between his hands; he wouldn't be able to sew again, not for a long time. That was one of the first things they had seen to.

"Silks do not suit him; they take too much care to maintain the quality."

He'd been through many interrogators and most had the sense to obey orders, but this barb it seemed had been taken a little too personally, vulgar insults accompanying the retaliation.

He wasn't giving in though as he let his eyes shut. He had left everything in the hands of District Thirteen and his Mockingjay, and he had no doubt in his mind that she would do it, he believed in her. And, after all, he was just her stylist, all he could do was make her up for the stage; Katniss was the one who would take his designs and fly, his girl on fire lighting up the skies with hope.

It was such a wondrous image that he never heard the chains fall, broken fingers caught in the links as his heart finally gave up, unable to cope with the punishment any longer. Yet there was a smile on his face and no one could easily unravel his hands from the figure eight he had tied in the shakes that bound him to the rebellion.


	2. Two: Bowline

_A/N._ The bowline is versatile, it does not slip or jam.

_Disclaimer:_ Don't own it. Never have, never will, just borrowing the characters.

**Two: Bowline**

No one had wanted to bring her the news. No one had wanted the task of telling the mad woman that her husband was dead. No one in command that was, so Johanna had left them with a rude gesture that explained exactly what she thought of their cowardly nature and told the poor girl, now a widow, the news herself in the only way Johanna could: blunt and to the point.

She told Annie the facts, that Finnick was dead, blown to pieces, and wasn't going to be coming home. The exact details were still unknown but she knew there wasn't anything left to bring home for a burial, nothing left to say goodbye to, nothing left of his smile or humour or kind touch when everyone else had been too scared of the crazy girl who had survived the Games.

Annie hadn't believed her. Or more she hadn't wanted to, but she knew that this was not something the other woman would lie about. Her eyes were serious and sincere, even a little concerned, not cold and bitter.

She could neither look away nor speak, but her fingers worked quickly and on instinct, habit, jerking the worn piece of rope from her belt and winding it this way and that, knotting and unknotting it, trying to hold herself together even as her mind began to unravel. Images flashed through her head. The Hunger Games, Finnick, death, the blood everywhere, seeping into everything, headless monsters that chased her at night, creeping fingers of fog and robbed warmth, and now explosions, bright light and fire, fire everywhere and screaming, so much screaming and her name over and over again, sharp staccato interspersed with insults–

Two hands snapped, locked, over hers, stopping them and Annie yelped, unsure how long she had been out of it.

"You brainless girl, stop it!" Johanna demanded, glaring and tense. "You're cutting your hands to ribbons."

Slowly Annie allowed Johanna to turn her hands over, bloody and battered, staining the rope she had been knotting up so tightly, trying so desperately to use to knot her life back together and keep it from falling apart now that the knot that Finnick had created for her was gone.

"Don't you be going crazy on me now," Johanna continued to warn, refusing to let go, something almost asking instead of ordering about her tone, but Annie wasn't listening.

She was staring at the rope in her ruined hands, listening to the echo of her husband's calm voice teaching – re-teaching- her how to tie all the knots she'd learnt as a girl, patiently showing her, helping her to tie them, telling her what each one was for and when it should be used. She would grow frustrated, the rope slipping through her shaking fingers time after time, creating a mess instead of a neat knot for fastening this or that in place, keeping things from drifting away.

"Hey," Johanna was still talking, and if Annie hadn't known better she would have heard frustration in the other woman's voice, instead she heard a kind of fear. Fear of losing someone else.

Annie knew she wouldn't be alright; she was alone in her own mind again, no escape from the nightmares that would leave her screaming, rocking backwards and forwards in a corner of the room that was now too large for just one person. No, she wouldn't be alright, but she would hold on, tie herself to the docks with her piece of rope that her husband had given to her because it had helped him when he hadn't know where she was or if she was safe.

"No tears now, I can't deal with the crying-"

She couldn't help it, she was scared, scared and so alone now knowing he wasn't there, would never be there again, would join the others in her dreams, the bad as well as the good, but she pressed the knotted rope into Johanna's hands, hard enough to leave a mark because it was proof she would not let go as she spoke for the first time since the other woman had walked into the room with a solemn expression on her face and nothing in her hands.

She shouldn't have known, but she did, as sure as the tides and the knots that held the boats in a storm, "I'm pregnant."

Johanna's eyes widened and she swore.

Annie couldn't stop the tears running down her face, but between her hands and Johanna's was the last knot Finnick had been able to teach her, and he could still hear his reason when she asked what it was for.

The bowline, he had said, the one to use when in doubt that anything else will work.


	3. Three: Slipped

_A/N._ The slipped knot is used for a quick release. This one was also written for the September round of fictunes_lj.

_Disclaimer:_ Don't own it. Never have, never will, just borrowing the characters.

**Three: Slipped**

The ground was cracked, black and left exactly as it had been. No one was there now. The bodies had been moved and everyone else moved out and moved on. Yet he'd come back, perhaps searching for something to clear his name, some way to prove it wasn't him or Beetee who had been behind the design. Or maybe he was just searching for closure.

He'd always known that war meant death; he'd watched it happen and been able to do nothing, locked up within the confines of District Twelve. Now, on the outside, he had willingly signed up his name to fight back, give back to the Capitol tenfold what the Capitol had done to the people. Yes, war was all about death, but killing to protect that which he held dear. If it meant his family – and that had always included Katniss, Prim and their mother – was safe and alive, he would do whatever it took.

Sitting on the ground he closed his eyes and listened to the silence. Silence which had once been children's voices, and then screams and then fire and now was nothing. Was is the work of Coin in an effort to enrage the people or Snow by chance thinking of the same trap he and Beetee and worked on?

It sounded empty to say it hadn't been his finger on the trigger, that he wasn't to blame for the massacre, but he had no control over Coin's actions, had no idea what she had been planning. Katniss had laid the crime at his feet though, his and no one else. So, who was to blame, who did he blame? He didn't know because all he could see was Prim's unrecognisable corpse and the accusation in her mother's eyes and Peeta's eyes and Katniss had the nerve to ask why he hadn't visited. The answer was simple: no one would let him.

It didn't hurt, slamming his hands against the charred and broken concrete, his eyes open again, glaring at the streets opposite.

"It wasn't me," he said, matter of fact, addressing the empty spaces in the world and in his mind that were occupied these days by ghosts. "I didn't drop that bomb. I didn't kill Primrose. Coin did."

No one was listening though; no one that mattered would ever listen. Coin was dead and Katniss was gone and so here he was with no way back to everything he had been fighting for, she couldn't even look him in the eye before she left, didn't grant him even a polite 'goodbye'.

He had known her better than anyone, she had said as much, and for a while, while the war was on he had believed it would work. They had been working together like they always used to, the best team there could be because he trusted her with his life. He had so long since surrendered his heart to her, but he had stayed the same old Gale, as true to his beliefs as he was to his Catnip. They could have done anything they wanted and succeeded.

Fact of the matter was Gale wasn't Peeta though, wasn't the perfect little baker's son, and in Katniss' eyes, he was just a killer now.

The few birds which had ventured inside the burnt out Capitol fled as his scream ripped through the air, no words, just sheer frustration, scrubbing the tears away before they could fall, because it was either that or let her break him so completely he would never be right again.

She couldn't forgive him the crime of being himself, and because of that he could never go home.

Beetee had made him an offer, and, as he picked himself up off ground, he knew he had no choice but to accept it. Go back to District Two, start over, and work himself to death if that was what it took to get that place up and running again.

It hurt, like hell, but Katniss was gone, _his_ Katniss was dead, and that crime was his as he tugged free the cord, watching the slip knots unravel with ease and leaving it all behind, both the hunting equipment and the rope that had been holding it together.


End file.
